Collapse-of-western-civilisation

Purporting to be written in 2393
AD this describes how western civilisation ignored the scientific evidence for
global warming at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of
the 21st and, by allowing the market forces of rampant capitalism to
liberate increasing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, caused
its demise.

Up to 2013 events described are
as we know them: thereafter the authors
engage in careful speculation based on extrapolation from today.

For example, amazingly, in 2012
the government of North Carolina in the US passed into law what became known as
the “Sea Level Rise Denial Bill”.

The Penumbral Age

Oreskes and Conway describe the
period 1988-2093 as the Penumbral Age that ended in the Great Collapse and Mass
Migration of 2073-2093. “A shadow of
ignorance and denial had fallen over people who considered themselves children
of the Enlightenment.”

This is their scenario for the
second half of the 21st century

“By 2060, Arctic summer ice was completely gone. … The ultimate blow for Western civilisation [was]
… the collapse of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet … [by 2093] driving up sea level approximately
five metres across most of the globe.” Then the Greenland Ice sheet disintegrated
“adding another two metres to mean global sea level rise.”

“Mass migration of undernourished and dehydrated
individuals, coupled with explosive increases in insect populations, led to
widespread outbreaks of typhus, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever and viral
and retroviral agents never seen before.”

“Dislocation contributed to the Second Black Death …[and]
killed as much as half the population of Europe.”

“Total losses – social, cultural, economic,, and demographic
– were greater than any in recorded human history. Survivors’ accounts make clear that many
thought the end of the human race was near.”

Recovery after 2090

“However, around 2090, something occurred whose exact
character remains in dispute. Japanese
genetic engineer Akari Ishikawa developed a form of lichenized fungus in which
the photosynthetic partner consumed atmospheric CO2 much more
efficiently than existing forms and was able to grow in a wide diversity of
environmental conditions. This
pitch-black lichen, dubbed Pannaria
ishiwaka, was deliberately released from Ishiwaka’s laboratory, spreading
rapidly throughout Japan and then across the globe. Within two decades, it had visibly altered
the visual landscape and measurably altered atmospheric CO2,
starting the globe on the road to atmospheric recovery and the world on the
road to social, political, and economic recovery.”

“Survivors in northern inland regions of Europe, Asia, and
North America, as well as inland and high-altitude regions of South America,
were able to begin to regroup and rebuild.
The human populations of Australia and Africa were wiped out.”

Why it happened

In two chapters entitled “The
Frenzy of Fossil Fuels” and “Market Failure” these historians (writing in 2393)
try to ascertain why western civilisation collapsed.

“To the historian studying this tragic period of human
history, the most astounding fact is that the victims knew what was happening and why.
Indeed, they chronicled it in detail precisely because they knew that fossil fuel combustion was to blame. Historical analysis also shows that Western civilisation
had the technological know-how and capability to effect an orderly transition
to renewable energy, yet the available technologies were not implemented in
time. … The thesis of this analysis is that Western civilisation became trapped
in the grip of two inhibiting ideologies: positivism
and market fundamentalism.”

Science bedevilled by positivism

“Scientists felt it necessary to prove to themselves and
the world how strict they were in their intellectual standards. … While the pattern of weather events was
clearly changing, many scientists insisted that these events could not yet be
attributed with certainty to
anthropogenic climate change. … More important, political leaders came to
believe that they had more time to act than they really did.”

“Historians [have identified] the carbon-combustion complex
– a network of powerful industries comprising fossil fuel producers, industries
that served energy companies, manufacturers whose products relied on
inexpensive energy, financial institutions that serviced their capital demands,
and advertising, public relations, and marketing firms who promoted their
products. Maintaining the carbon-combustion
complex was clearly in the self-interest of these groups, so they cloaked the
fact behind a network of ‘think tanks’ that issued challenges to scientific
knowledge they found threatening.”

“When environmental
science showed that government action was needed to protect citizens and the
natural environment from unintended harms, the carbon-combustion complex began to
treat science as an enemy to be fought by what ever means necessary. Science … became the target of scepticism,
scrutiny and attack.”

Economics bedevilled by market fundamentalism

Oreskes and Conway (writing
apparently from the future but actually reflecting powerfully on today) go on
to show how market fundamentalism underpinned the carbon-combustion complex as
a two-pronged ideological system.

“The first prong held that societal needs were served most
efficiently in a free market economic system.
Guided by the ‘invisible hand’ of the marketplace, individuals would freely
respond to each other’s needs, establishing a net balance between solutions
(‘supply’) and needs (‘demand’)”

“The second prong (neoliberalism) maintained that free
markets were not merely a good or even the best manner of satisfying material
wants: they were the only manner of
doing so that did not threaten personal freedom. The crux of this point was the belief that
marketplaces represented distributed power … preventing its undue concentration
in centralized government.”

Neoliberalism

“Most important for our purposes, neoliberal thinking led
to a refusal to admit the most important limit of capitalism: market
failure. When scientists discovered the
limits of planetary sinks, they also discovered market failure. The toxic effects of DDT, acid rain, the
depletion of the ozone layer, and climate change were serious problems for
which markets did not provide a spontaneous remedy. Rather, government intervention was required:
to raise the market price of harmful products, to prohibit these products, or
to finance the development of their replacements. [But the neoliberals were hostile to
centralized government and said that] government was ‘the problem, not the
solution’. Citizens slid into passive
denial, accepting the contrarian arguments that the science was unsettled. Lacking widespread support, government
leaders were unable to shift the world economy to a net carbon-neutral energy
base.”

Wow! What a book!
In a brilliant and powerful way it describes the political situation of
the world today. I hope it is widely
read – and acted on. But I fear for the
worst. Neoliberalism is very powerful
and the voices of reason weak.